I have trouble on Rest Days

I didn't end up going out on the Friday Night Skate, I figured it was better to try and rest up for the Sunday RSO Race.

I think I'm having some trouble with not doing anything on rest days. Is this a sign of overtraining? I rely on working out to relieve stress and anxiety quite often.

WHAT I ATE TODAY:
Banana, strawberry yogurt, flax bagel and light cream cheese, Gazpatcho Soup with olives, Tortillia Chips Doritos, Advocado Cheese Dip and Whole Wheat Pita, 2 hamburgers with cheese and fixin's, sausage, ice cream, mango cake, large green salad with dressing, potato salade, mango salade.

Combat the Hill.

I skated up the challenging hill on the way to Tanya's noon hour BODY COMBAT class up at St Clair. Traffic was crazy! One car blew past a pedestrian crossing right in front of me, another car just wouldn't stop as it was coming out of a gas station, and they were tearing up Yonge street, so there were crazy amounts of cars on the side streeet I usually take to get to the gym. One lady stopped me on the hill to ask for directions and then a bunch of cars got backed up behind her. At one point the bike lane on the hill was so wet and slippery I had to carefully go to the middle of the street, but was wary of cars coming up behind me. I don't know if it was the heat combined with the road closure that seems to make people road-crazy. On the way home I was trying to keep up with a bike and he was stopped at a red light and I had a near colision with him as I tried to get around him for a right hand turn onto the street he was stopped at.

COMBAT felt good today, I find it puts me in a good mood and helps me blow off steam. Went on stage with her and Melanya for the Muay Thai and Shoulder Blaster tracks. It's astounding how that class can make me feel energized even when my body is fatigued. It never feels like hard work, even if I'm covered head to toe in sweat afterwards.

Weird weather the past couple of days, the rain will fall and then clear up within hours and be hot and humid. I really want to get some additional mileage as I gear up for my Ultra's, but I also want to be rested for my first RSO race on Sunday. Perhaps I'll just put on some extra mileage after the race on Sunday?

It's a 500m time trial (2 and a 1/2 laps), 3km (15 laps) and 5km (25 laps). I'm nervous about the constant crossing over. I'll have to put in some good wheels and clean bearings on my skates tomorrow.

WHAT I ATE TODAY:
Banana, Booster Juice with Warrior Boost, 2 veggie dogs with veggie cheese slices with olives on flax bread, Lick's homeburger with all the fixin's, ice tea, Gazpatcho with hot sauce and olives.

Yesterday's Enterprise

Blogger has been acting up the past few days.

Yesterday was a bit stressful for me.

I did Heather's BODY PUMP class at noon hour at Manulife. All weights the same except I decided to give my legs a break from the stresses of the previous inline practices. My Lunges I took down to 7kg. Tricep pushups were getting a bit easier. I can probably try adding a small plate to my squats and biceps next week and see how that goes.

I met Jen and Rock Oasis and it was pretty obvious how fatigued I was compared to Sunday. We did 5 climbs and I didn't do anything above a 5.9, although there was one unmarked red climb that Jen just blew up that couldn't have been more than a 5.9. I'm curious to see what the rating turns out to be. The gym felt really hot, I should have drank some water while I was there.

Afterwards Jen and I went to Sharon's BODY FLOW class. I really needed to spend an hour just stretching and breathing. Jen even got on stage to shadow teach with Sharon.

WHAT I ATE YESTERDAY:
Banana, Veggie hotdog with olives on Flax bread, Booster Juice, Fruitopia Fruit Punch, Satay Beef Burrito.

I could have eaten more, but my mind is blanking right now.

I'm a tired old man

I found practice unusually tough today.

I brought my Garmin and I found the workout intense enough that I forgot to press Start at the beginning of each set.

I took the sidestreets above Bloor to practice tonight and it turns out that is indeed the quicker way to get to Landesdown track, even though I feel like I am detouring waaaay north. It's approx 4km that I can travel in less than 15 min I would guess.

We did a warmup of a little over 5km (13 laps). 26.4km/h.

15 km total today in the body of the workout. We did 3km (7 laps) with a sprint at the end of it, 5 times.
We were supposed to average 46sec/lap, and I managed to hang onto Camillo and Travis for the first 3km. After that I was getting dropped earlier and earlier.

Cooldown was 4 laps reverse direction.

I felt really tired today. Again, I think it could be because I'm not giving myself enough rest. It feels like I'm always tired, sore and stiff. Is it a sign of my age? I"ve really been wondering this since I turned 35 last month.

Leo mentioned that I'm not doing a full push again and that it looked like I was "toeing", and then he also noticed that it was because I wasn't "falling" on my push. Skaters shouls always be teetering on the edge of falling.

He showed me the dryland excercises for my arms. I should do them in 3 sets of 1 min intervals. No up and down movement with my body.

Maybe we'll see what happens when I switch over to a newer set of wheels and clean, oiled bearings for this weekend as well?

I'm supposed to do the RSO race this weekend. It makes me a bit nervous given the fact that it's a 200m track and it would be constant crossovers, which really tire me out the most. I suggested to the guys that maybe we could go and practice there on Friday just to get a feel for the track.

WHAT I ATE TODAY:
Banana. Gazpatcho soup with olives and hot sauce. Two veggie hot dogs with olives on flax bread. Gatorade Propel grape flavour (yuck!), Strawberry Kiwi Fresh and Fruity with Bubbles, Turkey Pita with all the fixin's, Ice tea, Strawberry Yogurt.

Pump Day

I did Bettina's Pump Class tonight. I brought the lunges back up to 15kg, but it was pretty tough. I used to have 17kg as my norm for lunges, hopefully I'll be able to add that back on at some point, but my legs are usually preetty worn out from skating. Tricep pushups were hard today. I really sweated on the squats. I never used to get arm sweat, but I had it today during the squat track. A sign of getting older? Perhaps next week I'll add more weight onto my biceps if I'm feeling strong.

WHAT I ATE TODAY:
Banana, Apple, Yogurt, 2 veggie hot dogs on flax bread with olives and pickle, popcorn with topping, blue Slush Puppy, General Tao's Chicken with asparagus, green peppers and white rice, strawberry and guava smoothie, cold springroll.

I skated home from practice today ;)

I did BODY COMBAT at noon hour today. It's funny how Tanya will always call me out now when I'm sneaking into class a few minutes late.

I just participated in class today, it felt like I'm still tired from the skate on Saturday. I didn't quite realize the extent of it until Jen gave me a massage last night and then it was pretty obvious how tight and sore my back and legs get. I'm not sure If I'm getting enough recovery time. I feel like I'm getting old. Perhaps I need to have some actual rest-days where I don't do anything, but then it's hard to fit in all the workouts and activities... maybe if I try and double things up a bit more. That would make for more intensive days, but I should get in one or two days of recovery. Right now I seem to be doing some kind of workout every day, although it's different muscle groups and activities. I should play around with this and see what happens to my energy level.

I finally remembered to bring my Garmin to inline practice today. Now that I have this Blog, I'm finding it useful to have all this information in one place so that I can look at the trends and improvements.

I skated to practice today, and it is about 4.46km from my front door to the track via the Harbord to College route. Because I don't have my brake, I'm extra careful. It took me about 20 minutes and I was averaging 12.9km/h.

Leo was back on skates today after being sidelined by his wrist operation, which was good to see. After pushing the insane tempo last week, Camilo manned the stopwatch today.

Warmup: 5.04 km. 10:35 min. 28.6 km/h. 12 laps approx.
Travis and I traded off pulling every two laps. Travis' pulls averaged 50 sec per lap, mine was closer to 54 sec.

Workout: 10.86 km. 24:08 min. 27 km/h. 25 laps.
We sprinted the last 100m of every third lap. Travis and I traded off pulling each lap for the first part and then Travis pulled for the last half or 1/3rd of the drill (I think it was the last 3 sprints).

Cooldown: 4.54 km. 12:33 min. 21.7 km/h.
I forgot to turn on the Garmin for the first lap, we did the reverse laps to work on the right hand crossovers. It was a tough workout and having Travis behind me forced me to work harder on them than I normally do. This will definately have to be part of my training regimen.

Afterwards, Leo mentioned a couple of the things that we would have to work on, getting my arm movements on the sprints, and getting a longer glide and push. He mentioned that he'll have an arm excercise drill for me to do. I'll have to remember to ask him about it on Wednesday.

Andres, the gentleman who designed the program we follow was there tonight. It was good to see him since he's been away for a while. Hopefully he will join us for Columbian food next week. His english has improved a great deal since last year. He mentioned that I should consider going for World's next year, but I don't think I can devote that much time to it. Three days of training a week is pretty intensive for me as it is.

If I am going to do the Ultra Marathons, I need to start upping my mileage in a major way. We'll see about this weekend, I agreed to go out to Oakville on my blades with Dai and Sandra on their bikes. I'm guessing I'll get a pretty good distance, but not the intensity.

I skated home from practice today, extremely moderate pace down Bloor street. I didn't set the Garmin, but I'm guessing that it is a shorter (although more hectic and hazardous) route than Harbord to College.

WHAT I ATE TODAY:
2 bowls of Gazpatcho with olives and hot sauce, banana, apple, 2 veggie hotdogs with oat and honey bread, Booster Juice with Warrior boost, Chicken Quesadilia, grape tomatoes, Gatorade, Orange Juice, Green Goodness Juice, Turkey Pita with all the fixin's.

Lazy Sundy.

Climbed tonight with Jen. I did a 5.6, 5.8, 5.10a, 5.10b, 5.10c and a 5.7. Felt pretty strong up until the overhanging 5.10c, which I struggled on the top half taking it one move at a time.

Mostly a rest day.

WHAT ATE TODAY:
Flax Bagel with cream cheese, grape tomatoes, orange juice, pickles, Spicy Thai Noodles with Tofu and vegetables, Asparagus and mushrooms with rice, Thai strawberry milkshake, mango salad, cold spring roll with shrimp, sticky rice and mango.